Cora, The First
by missmerrymak
Summary: "Can you please just tell me what happened when Cora was here?" A prequel to my story Le Conte de Madame Peugeot in which a stranger in Storybrooke is less of a stranger than meets the eye. I took some liberties with season two.


_Cora, The First_

"Can you please just tell me what happened when Cora was here?" She pleaded desperately, following the mayor into her office. "Mary Margaret and David _refuse_ to talk about it. Emma's being _diplomatic_ , and Henry never met her. Regina, come on, you know I would never judge you."

Regina sighed a long, drawn out sigh and rubbed her temple tenderly. She didn't like talking about it either, but she did believe what the other woman had said. She wouldn't dare judge her. And Regina felt comfortable enough with her to share her...let's say _grayer_ areas.

" _Fine_. I suppose it would be good for you to hear _my_ side of the story and not just the Charmings' bias." She added as she sat down behind her desk. The other woman took a chair on the other side. "Do you know what happened in the Enchanted Forest when Emma and Snow were there?"

Slowly, she nodded. "Yeah, Emma's talked about it. That's when she first realized she had magic. Cora couldn't take her heart."

"That's correct. However, Cora didn't stay in the Enchanted Forest when the two of them escaped through the portal. She coerced Captain Hook into taking her and his ship across the realms to Storybrooke."

She scoffed, "Yeah? How'd she get him to do that? I know Hook, and he would not go anywhere with her without a damn good reason."

"Is promising Rumpelstiltskin's heart on a platter enough?" Regina asked. The woman across from her raised her brow, and Regina watched as she pursed her lips and nodded.

"Yeah, okay, but how? Gold controls the dagger."

"Hook was rather blinded by his blood lust back then. Despite Emma and Snow returning here with the use of magic, Cora had convinced him that Storybrooke was magic- _less_. And that therefore he could kill the Crocodile with his own hook if he so pleased. However, when he discovered that magic did exist in Storybrooke he was forced to go along with Cora's plans until she could find a way for him to kill Rumple. Knowing my mother, I'm sure it was all planned so that Hook would be her lap dog. Anyway, then Cora found me. Actually, she got my attention by framing me for Archie's murder. I was trying to win Henry over~I was trying to be _better_ for him~and she _crushed_ that. She wanted me broken so I would be more receptive to her plans. _Malleable_." She said it with such bitterness that she watched as the other woman visibly recoiled. "Everyone was convinced it was me who had murdered Archie, and they were right to. Cora had used a cloaking spell to make herself look like me. It was an airtight case. I was so vulnerable and impressionable that she had no trouble convincing me that stealing Henry, using magic beans to get back to the Enchanted Forest, and blowing up Storybrooke was the only way to get what I wanted: Snow dead, Emma gone, and Henry mine. And it _worked_ ," Regina shrugged. "It worked," she repeated, softer this time, lost in the past.

" _Regina_ ," the pleading, sympathetic whisper of her name brought her back to the present. With a deep breath and a dismissive shake of her head, she cleared her mind.

"Meanwhile, Cora kept tabs on Gold. I didn't know it at the time, but she was planning on allowing Hook to wound him severely enough for him to believe that Gold had died~to get Hook off Gold's scent. But she wanted him alive. She wanted get close enough to finish the job herself. She wanted to become the Dark One. So when she saw that Gold was planning on leaving Storybrooke to find his son she had the perfect opportunity. One night Gold was testing a spell at the town line. It would allow him to cross over it without losing his memories. Cora informed the Captain of this, poisoned his hook, and set him loose. She was always good at getting others to do her dirty work. She was manipulative like that."

"So Hook did it, then? He stabbed Gold?"

"Yes. Hook ambushed him once Gold was across the line. He's powerless outside Storybrooke since there's no magic in this world. And with his bad leg he was an easy target. Hook escaped back to the Jolly Rodger, presumably to drink himself silly. After all he was, until Greg and Tamara kidnapped him, under the impression that Gold had died. While Hook celebrated, Belle took Rumple back to his shop. He refused to go to a hospital~not that one could help him. Instead, he called the Charmings and convinced them that they could fight Cora off. Despite how much they despised him, they apparently couldn't allow him to die because of their negligence. And they helped him. Well, they _believed_ that they were helping him. They were no match for Cora, and he knew it. All he needed them to do was buy a dying man a little time. And with that time he convinced Mary Margaret to use the candle."

"The _candle_?" She drawled skeptically, leaning back in her seat, one leg crossed over the other. Regina furrowed her brow and nodded.

"Yes. A _magical candle_!" She confirmed like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "One end is black and the other white. It can trade one life for another."

"So Gold could live and Cora would die. Two birds with one stone. Kinda smart on Gold's part... _objectively_ speaking." She finished awkwardly. Regina raised her brow. She knew the other woman meant no harm, but the comment was rather darkly tinted.

"Cora's heart had been locked up in my vault since before I even cast the Dark Curse that created Storybrooke. Gold told Snow that if she enchanted Cora's heart with the candle's magic and put it back inside her chest then Cora would die, and he would live. However, instead of putting the heart in Cora's chest herself, Snow got _me_ to do it." The other woman looked shocked and a little appalled and Regina didn't blame her. "I had come down there because Cora felt that someone was tampering with her heart. I found that it was Snow who was standing there with it. And I was so blindly devoted and desperate for my mother's love and approval that I believed her when she said that Cora would only truly love me when her heart was inside her chest again. So I did it. Right before Cora was about to stab Rumple with his own dagger I shoved her heart back in," Regina trailed off, her throat burning.

"So did she...love you?"

"I think she did. I'd like to think so," Regina babbled. She took a deep breath, trying to dry the tears pooling in the corner of her eyes. "The last thing she said to me was that I would have been enough. And I think that was the only thing I needed to hear more than an I love you."

The other woman smiled gently at her. Quickly, Regina wiped away her tears and sniffled and shook her head. Back to business.

"Anyway, then she was gone, and I was furious. I was so blinded by this _rage_ toward Mary Margaret that I began planning to finish what my mother had started. I knew she had magic beans somewhere in Storybrooke for when we went back to the Enchanted Forest with Henry. Actually, more specifically, she had a bean _plant_. I just didn't know where. Knowing my mother, though, I could be sure that she hadn't done the farming herself. And who better to grow magic beans than a giant?"

"Of course. Naturally," The other woman added with this snarky, satirical tone, nodding and furrowing her brow like a scholar would. Regina glared at her. She just stifled a grin and made a motion of zipping her lip. Regina exhaled forcefully but let it go.

" _As I was saying_ , while Cora and I had been scheming, before Hook stabbed Gold but after I'd been framed for murder, there had been some sort of crisis in town. I hadn't paid that much attention, but it certainly could have been a giant that had been destroying property. I used magic to figure out where David and the dwarves had been going day after day. Turns out they had rows and rows of young bean stalks. The Charmings must have been tempted by the thought of going back home as well. Of course I couldn't let them _have_ it. So I took a few for myself, and I burned the rest. And I hid them well enough so that no matter how hard the Charmings looked they wouldn't be able to find them."

"You used magic to conceal them."

"Exactly," Regina confirmed. "I used magic so they'd never be able to find them. Of course they quickly realized that I was the one who destroyed the beans, but they never did find any evidence that I had taken a few for myself. They were angry and they barred me from seeing Henry and I couldn't get a coffee without the whole town on red alert, but that didn't matter in my mind. The next day I retrieved the trigger~a fail safe that I had built into the curse. If activated it would destroy all of Storybrooke. Everyone not born in this land would die."

"Where were you hiding it?"

"That's none of your business," Regina told her sharply. The woman across from her raised her brow and her hands and leaned backed with a slight chuckle. Regina took a deep breath. "I got the trigger, and I had the beans. I was ready to go. That's when Mary Margaret came to me. She wanted me to kill her. She stood on my doorstep…" Regina couldn't help a small chuckle. "... _wanting_ me to kill her. I nearly did, too," she continued to the other woman's horror. "I ripped out her heart, and I held it up with this manic grin on my face. But then I saw it. There was a black spot on it. Bad deeds turn red hearts black. I showed it to her, and it caused her so much pain that I realized it would be better for her to suffer than to die by the trigger so _easily_. So I put her heart back in her chest, and I settled back to watch for a while. I still planned on using the trigger and the beans. I even had a memory wipe ready so that Henry wouldn't remember all the horrible things I did. We could start over."

"Then what happened? Why didn't you use the trigger? I mean, not that I'm complaining, but...what happened?"

" _You_ , dear. That's when you came to town."


End file.
